Martyr
by AuralayKristine
Summary: Trudy's final thoughts. Hints of unrequited Trudy/Jake. Kinda sad.


I always kind of figured I'd eventually die out here. That's the thing about Pandora; there's no such thing as being careful enough. You might think you know her tricks, but one day you're standing outside admiring the sunset, then bam--you get stung by a firewasp, and you're dead before you can call for help.

I wasn't going out that way, though. No, nothing so pedestrian for good ol' Trudy. I was gonna die as a martyr to someone else's cause. And that someone would probably not even notice.

Figured.

Don't get me wrong, I like the na'vi. I like them a lot, actually. When things with the school turned sour, I really missed getting to see them every day. And I felt bad for what we were doing out here. This is their home, not ours; seems to me we could leave them alone and find other unobtanium deposits.

But convenience is capital, and I'm just a lowly pilot, anyway. It's not like the higher ups listen to me. Until the destruction of hometree, I figured it was best to just keep my head down, and things would turn out the way they were meant to.

I guess that was my first mistake. Trusting to a higher order of justice and fairness might sound a little naive, but I really always had, until I saw those poor creatures running for their lives, as the only home they'd ever known started taking missile fire.

That's when I realized if there was ever going to be justice in this messed-up universe, it was going to have to come from people who were willing to fight for it. Jake, Grace, Norm...they'd given up their freedom to try to help the Na'vi. And I knew, given a chance, they'd do so much more.

Maybe that's why I got them out. Maybe I wanted to see justice restored, and knew somewhere deep down that they were the only ones who could do it.

Or maybe my reasons were a little more personal than that.

You'd have to be blind not to see that Jake was something special. Even Grace saw it, much as she tried to deny it at first. Norm, who had every right to hate Jake for barreling in and taking over the job he'd worked so hard for--even Norm stood behind him. It was hard not to trust Jake; he inspired it in you. It was probably why the na'vi had taken him in.

I'd seen it. Day one, I knew I liked this guy--knew I was dealing with someone I could trust to watch my back.

But there was more to it than that. Call me a schoolgirl if you want, but the fact is, Jake's an attractive guy. And I might be on Pandora, but I'm not dead--not yet, anyway. I challenge any red-blooded (or green blooded, or purple blooded) woman to look into those baby blues and not want to get closer to this man. It's not just the looks (though those certainly help). It's that deep sense of a tortured soul you get when you look into his eyes. Maybe it came from losing an identical twin--that was supposed to be hell. I don't know; I'm no shrink. All I know is from the moment I saw him looking up at me, eyes full of trust and that buried glimmer of sadness, I was lost.

Of course, I was literally lost, too. I might not have known it then, but I was destined to be upstaged by a glowing blue na'vi princess who had tried to kill him. Just another chapter in the storybook of my life.

At least it didn't look like I'd have to deal with it much longer.

"Rogue one is hit. I'm going in. Sorry, Jake."

As my bird began to shake to pieces around me, I angled myself toward the Dragon. I was going down, but maybe I could take the bastards down with me. Maybe I could make my death mean something.

Quaritch was too smart for that, though. He knew well enough my Sampson was done for, and he knew what I knew: I wouldn't survive a crash in these mountains. Which meant he also knew that the only tactical plan available to me would be to turn the Sampson into a kamikaze machine, and run him down.

Messed up as my instruments were out here in the vortex, I still heard the blip of frantic warning as the missiles approached. Two of them. Overkill much, Quaritch? You could probably have taken me out with a pistol at this point.

Didn't matter. I lifted my eyes, searching the sky, hoping that even if my death hadn't exactly given us a lot of tactical advantage in the fight, it at least had accomplished what I'd hoped it would.

Far, far above, back lit by the sunlight, I saw a flash of red and black circling in the sky. And though it was too far away for me to make out the figure on its back, I knew he was up there--still safe. Still alive, for the moment.

I smiled.

The missiles found their target.

* * *


End file.
